Naomi Stone's Blog, page 4

Happy Ever After

Like a lot of people, I suspect, I have a continual internal debate over the issue of control. I was raised to ‘be responsible,’ to do my homework and my chores and to behave considerately toward others. I have no beef with this.  As an adult, it translates to carrying out my obligations and working hard at my job and being a decent human being. Yet, along with these values comes an expectation that if I do these things, I get certain rewards. If I’m willing to work diligently, I can expect a decent living. If I’m a respectful and considerate person, I can expect to be liked and respected, even loved.

It’s been difficult for me to accept the reality of a recent prolonged period of unemployment in which none of my previously successful tools for job hunting have yielded results.  And it’s as if the work I do as a writer doesn’t count because it pays so little.

I’m not just kvetching here. There’s a profound lesson in the realization that for however long we’re able to game the system and get things going our way in life, ultimately, the universe is bigger and badder and something will come along to prove how little power or control we truly have.

Economic disaster, disease, death, the loss of loved ones… Life is ephemeral. This is our predicament and challenge, and that of our characters, too. In the face of the inevitability of loss and death, how can there be any possibility of happy endings?

In traditional romance novels, the happy ending was love and marriage and the expectation of children and family. Whatever else might come, these are truly a triumph in the face of death. When individuals age and die, their genetic heritage can continue in their children and their progeny after them for many generations to come. That’s the ‘ever after.’

In many modern romances, it’s enough to have a ‘happy for now’ ending, in recognition that love shared is a joy in itself, and the world is a better place for the more loving people and relationships in it, regardless of how long they might endure or whether any children may come from it.

In fact, as human beings our perspectives are limited. We experience time as one moment flowing continuously into the next, an ever-changing present. But imagine time as a dimension we could transcend, to see the landscape of past and present and future spread out below us. From that perspective there is no death, no loss. There are whole lifetimes eternally woven into a great tapestry, or existing together like books on the shelves of a great library. Each representing a life from cradle to grave. Although the story comes to an end, it still exists, complete with each event, there to be visited again (déjà vu!). The love scenes are always there, adding their light and their warmth to the panorama of an eternal history.

What Makes a Great Superhero?

Cross-posted from http://reviewsunleashed.com/?p=445

A lot what makes for a great character holds true for making a great superhero. A great character isn’t necessarily a good guy character. Witness Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Syler on Heroes.

Human flaws and failings are part of what makes a character memorable and sympathetic. Villains can carry their failings to extremes, but heroes must draw a line for themselves even if it means a constant internal battle.

The Incredible Hulk is tortured with concern over the damage he may do unknowingly. Angel (again from Buffy the Vampire Slayer – that Joss Whedon can sure write ‘em) is tortured with guilt for his past and the threat of reverting to his evil alter ego.

A superhero doesn’t have to be tortured to be great, but Batman is a more sympathetic character for his tragic past. Superman is sympathetic as an orphan stranded alone on an alien planet. Spiderman is admirable for taking responsibility after his uncle’s death and giving up the girl he loves in order to protect her.

It’s their essential humanity, their failings and vulnerabilities and the courage to pursue their missions in the face of these that make a superhero great. If Iron Man were actually a robot, with no emotions, no ego, no concern for those he helped, helping people only because programmed to do so, he would not be a superhero at all. He’d be equipment, like the helicopter lifting in an air rescue team.

Superheroes have made a choice in the face of their flaws and vulnerabilities to use their powers to help those in need. A great superhero is one with memorable character as well as with great powers, one who continues to make the tough choices even when the best choice is not at all clear.

And where would the great superheroes be without their love interests? Superman had Lois Lane (and Lana Lang and other LLs), Spiderman had Mary-Jane Watson (and Gwen Stacy). Wonder Woman had Captain Steve Trevor.

Batman seemed to do okay with dating around, but it raised questions about his relationship with the boy wonder – and left him vulnerable in the face of such foes as Catwoman and Poison Ivy.

There have been superheroes without a significant love interest, but for those who have such a relationship, it adds considerable interest to the story lines. Not just when the special person is endangered, but for the added dimension it reveals to the Hero’s character. Even heroes can quake in the face of love, feel torn between conflicting priorities, struggle to find a balance between work and family life. Heroes who are more human by virtue of their love lives are also more heroic for rising to meet the challenges involved.

In my novel, Wonder Guy, Greg Roberts, an ordinary, if nerdish guy, is granted super powers by his fairy godmother, for the explicit purpose of impressing Gloria, the girl next door. He would never ordinarily have set out to become an actual hero, but once granted special powers, he feels responsible for using them to do some real good for people in need. In playing the hero, he becomes the hero.

My Team Guardian novellas (Sweet Mercy and Safe Haven (Shining Hope in the works)) each involve people whose ordinary lives have been changed forever after a Probability Bomb leaves them endowed with special powers. The good guys band together to police the rogues among them, and in the course of saving the world from the rogue Talents, find romance and meaning in unexpected ways.

What Makes a Great Character?

Cross-posted from The Pen and Muse Book Reviews
http://thepenmuse.net/2013/11/06/blog-tour-guy-naomi-stone/

A great character is memorable: like Katniss Everdeen or Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, like Jane Austen’s Emma, Harry Potter, Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden or Mary Janice Davidson’s Betsy the Vampire Queen. Or, moving to other media, like Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man or Spike from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.

A great character, as in Spike’s case, isn’t necessarily heroic or sympathetic. In fact, some human – or inhuman – failings may be one of the necessary ingredients to making a character memorable.

Tolstoy said, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Similarly, well-adjusted characters have a certain bland similarity, while flawed characters each have their own unique quality of quirkiness. Generic good guys may be wonderfully heroic, but lack the idiosyncrasies to make them memorable characters. Katniss was more concerned with survival than with being a good person. Frodo was overwhelmed by his burden. Bilbo was timid. Emma presumed to know what was best for others – and these are all good and sympathetic characters.

One of the reasons I’ve read the Lord of the Rings trilogy over and over again is because Tolkein had the gift of making me care about his characters. If he had told the story from the perspective of a powerful character like Gandalf or Aragorn or Galadriel, I would not have cared so much. The hobbits didn’t start out as heroes, but they were great characters: good natured people concerned with homey comforts, leading relatively simple lives until they were drawn into the great affairs of their world. They didn’t start out as heroes, but grew into their heroism as they rose to meet their challenges. As a fairly ordinary person myself, I could relate to the hobbits while Gandalf et al were too far beyond my ken.

To sum up, I’d say that what makes great characters is a combination of their unique human failings and how easily the readers can relate their concerns. My own characters tend to be regular people who are caught up in extraordinary events or are gifted with extraordinary powers.

In Wonder Guy, the first full-length novel in my Fairy Godmothers’ Union series, Greg Roberts and Gloria Torkensen start out this way. They’re regular people, just living their lives. Greg is more into the world of science, comics, his head than the world around him. Gloria is overly concerned with conventional practicality, and is at risk of losing the chance at a life that will fully engage her passions. The events of the story – which include magic, superpowers, a murder mystery, giant mosquitoes, dinosaurs and evil fae – force them both to grow, to realize their greater potential. Greg involves himself in the world and becomes a true hero; Gloria discovers her capacity for truly passionate, selfless love.

In my first full-length novel, Spirited, working artist Amelia Swenson accidentally unleashes a djinni and an evil succubus demon into the world and must deal with the consequences, seeking freedom for the handsome djinni and a way to save the world from the dangerous demon, traveling to the ancient past and rediscovering a capacity to love that she’d thought lost forever.

My Team Guardian stories involve people whose lives were changed forever when a Probability Bomb endowed them with special powers. They band together, the only ones capable of policing the rogue Talents among them.  Thrown together while confronting these rogues, various members of the team find love and meaning in each story.

The Most Underrated Superheroes: Fairy Godmothers

Most people probably don’t think of fairy godmothers as superheroes. They’re not buff young people in spandex. Their true natures and motivations are hard to understand, and they generally appear in supportive, rather than starring roles.

This last, more than anything, may be why they are underrated. But let’s look at the evidence.

Most superhero origin stories wouldn’t stand up to real scientific analysis. Radioactive spider bite imparts massive genetic changes rather than a rash? C’mon. Mutations that defy the laws of physics, allowing flesh to stretch far beyond normal capacities, bones to endure unheard of stresses, eyes to emit laser beams without going blind, etc, etc? I don’t think so. The rays of our sun are different than Superman’s sun of origin and that imbues him with amazing strength rather than a sunburn? This is not science. This is magic.

And what is a fairy godmother’s stock in trade? Magic – a superpower by another, more honest name. In fact the fairy godmother in Wonder Guy implies that what we see as magic is rooted in an advanced understanding of the nature of the universe, one in which the emotional connections between people exert a far greater power than the physical sciences would recognize.

Fairy godmothers have been part of our folklore for hundreds of years, appearing in tales shared by old wives with their grandchildren in peasant cottages throughout Europe as well as in the inventions of French courtiers. Fairy godmothers have stepped in and used their superior powers to help worthy young men and women find happiness in countless tales. They use their powers for good – another sign of the superhero.

They act as a balancing influence in a world where the powerful and corrupt too often hold all the cards. They assert that good hearts and characters have an edge all their own.

The superheroes of comics and movies often use their powers in dramatic ways – the flashier the better. Very often in folklore the fairy godmother makes a single appearance, imparting some magical gift or bit of wisdom and departing again, leaving center stage to the young hero or heroine of a story. They are generous, but it’s not like they don’t have anything better to do than interfere in others’ lives.

They are powerful, but use their power conservatively: just the right touch in the right time and place to do the trick.

In this regard, Wonder Guy is a bit different from my other Fairy Godmothers’ Union stories. The FGU makes an exception in his case because a lot of flashy magic is what it takes to accomplish their goals – as well as helping the good-hearted hero, Greg Roberts to win the regard of Gloria, the girl he’s loved since he was twelve.

With his fairy godmother’s help, Greg becomes a superhero of the buff young spandex-wearing, flashy dramatics kind — but it’s all due to the help of the unsung Fairy Godmothers’ Union supplying the magic.

Are fairy godmothers an iconic archetype representing the understated power of grannies throughout history? Of little old ladies working together and behind-the-scenes to help their offspring and communities thrive? Maybe so. I wouldn’t discount the possibility.

Superheroes in the Media by Naomi Stone

Crossposted from http://brookeblogs.com/?p=7075

While movies like Spiderman and X-Men certainly helped inspire my novel, Wonder Guy, my interest in superheroes arose long before either film was a spark in some studio executive’s eye.
I first admired the heroes, Mighty Mouse and Rocky the Flying Squirrel. In fact, my very first girly crush was on the valiant squirrel who fought evil with his loyal sidekick, Bullwinkle J Moose. They taught me the most basic lesson of heroism: that it must go hand in hand with a sense of humor.

I also loved several television series that aired in the sixties and seventies. The Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves, originally aired in the fifties but was in syndication when I was in grade school and I was a fan. Later they came out with a Batman TV series, starring Adam West. The show had a campy style often referring back to its comic book roots, accompanying fight scenes with visuals of balloons saying things like, ‘Biff!,’ ‘Pow!,’ and ‘Bam!’ Every week a villain would put Batman in deadly peril and his wits and utility belt would somehow get him out of the fix — with a little help from the boy wonder, Robin and the wise butler, Alfred.

At that time I was a little older and not content to merely have a crush on a hero. I wanted to be part of the action. I daydreamed about being Robin’s twin sister, Blue Jay and wearing a costume in shiny sapphire and black satin to match his, and taking part in all their adventures. (To be honest, romantically, I was more drawn at that point in my life to one of the bad boys – The Riddler, as played by Frank Gorshin.)

I watched The Green Hornet in its day, and Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Heroes in their days. I also watched I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched, as well as the shows specifically about superheroes. In the sixties and seventies it was something to have shows about women with any kind of power, even if the men with power were superheroes and the witch and the genie were treated more like dangerous natural forces that had to be kept in check by their men-folk.

It was a big step to finally get heroes like Xena and Buffy. In my first novel, Spirited, I went back to the idea of a genie as a romantic figure, but in this case the genie is a guy, gorgeous as well as powerful. The heroine, Amelia is concerned less with keeping his power in check than with helping him win back his freedom and autonomy from the wizard’s spell that enslaved him. She must learn to resist her temptation to take advantage of the power she has over him.

Wonder Guy is probably most closely inspired by the first Spiderman movie. It’s hero, Greg Roberts is a nerd, someone more likely to read comic books than attempt to emulate their heroic. But he’s in love with Gloria, the girl next door and she plans to marry someone else. Someone all wrong for her.

This is where Wonder Guy strays far from the usual comic book formula. Wonder Guy is the first full-length novel in my series of Fairy Godmothers’ Union stories. There’s no faux scientific explanation for his superpowers. They are magic — a gift from his fairy godmother, granted specifically to help him impress Gloria.

Greg doesn’t want to accept this apparently selfish goal at first, but the fairy godmothers know that a world with more happy relationships is a worthy goal in itself — and it’s not like super-powered Greg doesn’t help out a few other causes in the course of his adventures. In fact, the Fairy Godmothers’ Union has an agenda of its own and Greg and Gloria’s personal happiness are intertwined with events that affect their whole community.

Wishing for a fairy godmother

CROSSPOSTED from http://www.snarkymomreads.com/?p=1760



Snarky Mom wonders… have you ever had a situation where you’ve wished for a Fairy Godmother?

I’ve wished for a fairy godmother so often it’s probably what led me to start writing stories about them. The thing with fairy godmothers is that they are not genies or magic wishing wells. They don’t grant any and all wishes.

Cinderella, for example, and supposing her story real, probably wished for something or other everyday — if only to escape the notice of her step-mother or find some relief for her aching back or knees. As it was, she never asked for a ball gown or a carriage. She wished to attend the ball to which she’d been invited.

The fairy godmother stepped in at this time, when she never had before. She supplied more than was asked. A tricky genie or devil’s bargain might have sent Cinderella to the ball as she was: on foot, ragged and filthy with ashes.

Why did the fairy godmother step in at that time and not before? Why did she do everything to assure that Cinderella would not only attend the ball, but shine there? That she would show off the full potential of her natural beauty and catch the eye of the prince? That she would appear as a member of the respectable nobility and worthy of a like respect? This all suggests that the fairy godmother was motivated not by the letter of the wish, but by the spirit, that she had Cinderella’s best interests at heart all along.

Cinderella is a story, of course, and I can only imagine myself in the place of the fairy godmother and surmise her reasons and motives. Perhaps her powers to interfere in the natural course of events were limited, so that she could do only so much and she had to choose her time wisely. If she could only help once, she had to make sure that what she did would count to the best effect. By awaiting this one opportunity, she could change the whole course of Cinderella’s life for the better, using only a few small bursts of magic.

Choosing the moment required a broader understanding and perspective than Cinderella had. She could wish a thousand times for a thousand things and having those wishes granted might ultimately have done her no good. The fairy godmother’s perspective must have included an understanding of the affairs of the whole kingdom, the tastes of the prince, a sense of how a great many lives and goals interacted with each other and would be affected by what she did.

As I said, there have been many times in my life when I’ve wished for magical intervention. I’ve had my heart broken. I’ve lost a home to foreclosure. I’ve lived in poverty and lost loved ones to death, watched helplessly while they suffered from disease.

Death and disease and poverty have been with humanity from the start. Even supposing they are real, it may be that some things are beyond a fairy godmother’s powers to cure. It may be that there aren’t enough fairy godmothers to meet the demand. Perhaps I have already benefited in ways I never knew. And it may be that the moment has not been ripe for reaping the best effect from the application of my own fairy godmother’s help. Like the hero or heroine of any story, each of us is limited in our knowledge of what the morrow will bring and of the full consequences of our actions – or the fulfillment of our wishes. I like to think that if the fairy godmothers are out there, they do what they can, acting from superior wisdom, to produce the best possible results.

Writing through Crises

People have lived through worse, but this has been a difficult period for me. After planning and organizing for a couple months to arrange for a new place to live, I spent four days in that place before having to move again. This time with no plan and no opportunity to organize. Not really like surviving a natural disaster, but there are similarities. Most of my possessions are inaccessible, being in storage. I’m living out of a suitcase with relatives. My resources are limited and I have no idea where I’ll go from here. I’m in a daze, maybe it’s shock, grieving for a lost sense of stability, fearful I may never find it again.
 
And yet — this is also a reminder of how much more there is to life than my possessions or a single place I might call home. The friends and family who’ve stepped up to help are particularly dear. Participating in my communities reminds me of a whole other kind of stability that I still retain. I can still join members of my local chapter of RWA for a meeting. We still share our interests and goals. I can join friends for a board game party where the people and games have been a recurring part of my life for years and remain as an island of normalcy – though they might be surprised to hear themselves referred to as such. I can still work on a story manuscript that’s been an ongoing project for the last few months.
 
Writing offers me the opportunity to create a whole alternate world I can carry around with me. Wherever I happen to be living, whatever my circumstances, the world of the story is part of me. It offers a stability that doesn’t rely on fickle variables like landlords and employment or clement weather.
 
My personal crisis gives me plenty of sympathy for the plights my characters experience. My difficulties and the ways they impact my spirits and motivation are fodder for my imagination, deepening my understanding of my characters. The very things that trouble me lend substance to the world of my imagination that sustains me through troubled times – and by taking the time and trouble to do the writing and editing and make my stories available, I’m sharing my islands of stability with anyone who cares to join me there.

Story Telling as a Walk in the Woods

Anticipating a meeting with my critique partners to discuss the latest draft of a novella I’ve been working on, I found myself wondering why I find it easier to write short than long. I’ve had a handful (four) short stories published in paying markets, and the writing of them went relatively smoothly and painlessly, while writing my novels has required years and seemingly endless revisions.

With a short story or novella I can see the shape of the story more easily. The story’s overall structure and its relation to the interior scenes and details that contribute to said structure all seem more readily apparent to me with a short story. I can see the tree, its limbs and leaves as a whole thing.

With a novel, it’s more like looking at a forest, but then having to continually change focus and perspective to assess the relationship of the forest to the trees. Individual scenes and chapters need to work at their own level while furthering the overall story. It’s too easy to get caught up at the level of the scene and lose track of how it contributes to the story, or too easy to pull back, trying to get a sense of how it all fits together and fail to appreciate the vital details that make reading the story an engaging experience.

The mistake is in wanting to stay too long at either focal range. Telling the story requires a continual shifting of perspective between the immediate and the overall, between the forest and the trees. As a visual artist I look continually between the overall impact of a drawing, the dynamics of how elements relate to the page, and the detailed rendering of those elements. What is the arc of that curve of a chin, and how does it fit with the shape of the head in relation to the bounding box of the page? In telling a story there’s a similar need to consider how each detail, each scrap of dialog and description contributes to the overall shape and impact of the story. The task is more complex in a novel, but just as vital in a short story. As an artist, I tend to see that overall structure as maplike, something seen from above and at a distance, but as a writer, I need to reveal the overall shape of the forest through immersion, leading the reader over the topography to feel the character of it from within.

And this need to consider such interrelationships extends to the level of sentences.  I often find myself wanting to say too much all at once. I want the tree to convey the forest. I want the reader to know my characters from the get go, with their back-stories and motivations all laid out up front. It’s a challenge to hold back and let the story unfold, revealing the hidden glades and sudden morasses only as we go along. Sometimes I want a single sentence to do the work of a paragraph, and so create huge convoluted passages as entangled as any bramble patch. But this doesn’t tangle up my characters so much as my readers.

The story is a path through the forest, and I’m a guide. It’s my job to lead the expedition through the wilderness, pointing out the most striking trees, useful herbs and edible berries, points of scenic wonder or danger. Here the trees are scenes with characters involved in action and dialog, arranged to provoke interest about what will come next. I’m responsible for keeping to a path my readers can follow, not losing them in swamps of pointless monolog or entangling them in briars of overly tangled prose. I must choose a path for the interesting points along its route, without calling attention to the path itself by leaving roots or pitfalls to trip up my travelers.

 

At this point I might discussing various kinds of paths, whether they be foot-tracks or highways, and whether the routes might lie through jungles, forests, gardens or cities, but all that is up to an individual writer and the variety of choices makes for a more interesting world of books.

Sex, Sexuality and Kink in F/SF Literature

A couple things bothered me on this CONvergence panel that I don’t think I addressed adequately as a participant at the time.

1) – The assertion of an automatic association between sex and death, loss or subjugation of the self, and that marriage equals loss of identity, as demonstrated by women giving up their surnames.

I don’t argue against there being some element of submission in sex, and an element of ego loss, but these can be entirely a matter letting go to the feelings, to one’s own passion and not necessarily any kind of subjugation of one person by another. Modern western marriages aim at equal partnerships between whole persons who love and respect one another as individuals. Many women today keep their own names and are often breadwinners with meaningful careers. How retrograde is it to suggest they lose their identities in marriage?

I’d suggest that mainstream romance novels are a good indication of the kinds of sexual relationships that continue to have a broad appeal. In mainstream romance strong heroines are de rigueur and relationships work by establishing mutual trust and love between participants who share a mutual passion.

2) – The discussion skewed toward a focus on BDSM and ’50 Shades of Gray’ – with the suggestion that the book’s popularity indicated a widespread proclivity toward BDSM.

The popularity of ’50 Shades of Gray’ could as well be due to curiosity as to proclivity. ‘The Story of O’ provoked similar interest back when it was published in 1954, and yet BDSM remained a deviation from the norm rather than becoming mainstream.

Some panelists suggested that the connection of sex with death was the norm. I consider than one potential kink out of many. Perhaps widespread enough to underlie the popularity of vampire romance.

Yet, the focus on this one form of kink struck me as a distraction from the main topic. BDSM is hardly the only form of kink. The topic of incest was mentioned only in passing, necrophilia and pedophilia not at all. We didn’t hear about fetishes for big feet, big bums, licking eye-balls, or any other favorite body parts. We did hear about tentacles, but not furry sex. What do all these forms of kink have in common?

How much is a matter of culture? Hetero monogamous couples are mainstream in the US, polygamous marriages are mainstream in other cultures. Incest was practiced by the Egyptian pharaohs. Child brides have been normal in some times and places.

The word ‘kink’ suggests something outside the norm, but ‘norm’ is a moving target, and it really seems to be very normal for humans to develop a variety of sexual practices outside their norms. It seems to me that the interesting question here is why human beings develop erotic fixations in so many different ways, including the mainstream fixation on another individual?

Sympathy for the Devil

Some stories call for villains. Heroes and heroines need to test themselves against opposition of some sort. Sometimes the opposition can be a hero’s own limitations, the forces of nature, or constraints of time and circumstance. But more interesting conflicts arise when the opposition pits our heroes against human wit and cunning. Some stories need villains, but I don’t believe any one is born as a villain. The villains in my stories tend to be people consumed by what would be ordinary human drives in the rest of us.

Most people want control in our lives, the power to shape our own destinies; most of us feel the urge to lash out when we’re hurt or when our needs go unmet while others prosper; it’s perfectly natural to want a successful career and the rewards and recognition that go along with one. These urges and impulses are not what make a villain. People become villains when they forget every other value, regardless of who gets hurt, in order to fulfill the urges for power or vengeance or gain.

The villains are people who have lost perspective on their own lives. In ‘Sweet Mercy’ the villain was a man who suffered the loss of his job, his wife and his home and blamed others for that loss. Decent people suffer such losses all the time and deserve our sympathy. I’ve been through bankruptcy and foreclose myself. I’ve lost people most dear to me. Decent people find ways to cope; we mourn our losses, but we cling to the good things that remain to us: friends, community, family & health, our interests in any of the myriad facets of this vast and fascinating world.

Villains are the ones who lose perspective on their own suffering, let it become the whole focus of life, and the excuse for whatever acts they think may alleviate their pain or emptiness, including lashing out at anyone they hold responsible.

I don’t believe anyone is born a villain, and I tend to believe that most villains have the potential for redemption, that it’s possible for them to come to recognize the limitations in their own perceptions.

A villain can come to recognize that each of us is more than any one drive or motivation. If human beings crave the power to control our own destinies, we also crave the comforts of fellowship and the security of mutual reliance. If we fear mortality, we also have the capacity to transcend fear, to become sources of compassion and comfort to our own fears and to those of others, to embrace the personal, but move beyond it to fulfill goals in a grander scheme.

A villain is a person who believes the lie that limits his or her conception of self to some small and petty corner of the human soul. The truth is that the human soul is as vast and complex as this whole world: containing everything from gardens to deserts, jungles to cities, bedrooms to kitchen sinks, and oceans to heavens above — and that we all have more potential than any one corner of a soul can hold.

Sometimes stories need villains, and sometimes they just need characters as complex as we are. ‘Wonder Guy’ – my latest release includes several villainous characters. What do you think of them?